urge parliamentary scrutiny of the state within a state of the Khakis, especially the dreaded spy agency (DGFI). The interference of the Khakis into state politics will once again jeopardize institutionalization of elective democracy, good governance and secularism. The rogues fear social justice activists, critics, politicians and journalists too - Joy Manush!

Monday, August 13, 2012

Assam: Demographic Invasion

Photo: Victims of racial riots in tears in make-shift camps

K.P.S. GILL

MORE THAN
three decades of ethnic and communal strife, as well as multiple insurgencies, in
Assam,
have never seen a significant echo outside the Northeast, other than the
occasional arrest of, or incident involving, a militant hiding out in some
distant part of the country. Indeed, the violence of India's wider Northeast has
remained almost hermetically sealed within the region since its beginnings in 1951,
with the Naga insurrection.

Abruptly, a
local - albeit sizeable - conflagration in the Bodoland Territorial
Administrated Districts (BTAD) of Assam
has found violent reverberations in Mumbai and Pune in Maharashtra, Ranchi in Jharkhand, as well as parts of Andhra Pradesh
and West Bengal. even as communal
organizations from Delhi and other parts of the country send 'fact finding
missions' into the affected areas in Assam, to conclude that a great conspiracy
against the State's 'Muslim citizens' is afoot. The purported 'Muslim anger' over
developments in the Bodo areas has congealed with apparent distress over the
treatment and violent displacement of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. India's
'failure' to 'do enough' for the Rohingyas was one of the supposed triggers for
the 'protest' in Mumbai and Ranchi, which culminated in pre-planned rioting on
August 11, 2012.

Curiously, little
notice has been taken here of Muslim-majority Bangladesh's inflexible position
that Rohingya refugees would receive neither admission into nor shelter on, Bangladeshi
soil. Indeed, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina rather curtly told British Secretary
of International Development Affairs Andrew Mitchell in London,
that 'countries including Britain,
which are concerned over the Rohingya issue, should hold talks with Myanmar instead of putting pressure on Bangladesh.' If
the Indian leadership was susceptible to learning anything, it would see a
strong lesson here.

Unfortunately,
leaderships and administrators in this country remain tenaciously uneducable. Far
from seeing the intentional mischief in the present troubles, they have sought
to impose a pall of confusion over the most basic issues, claiming that the
violence in the Bodo areas has no relationship to the long unresolved, and
implicitly encouraged, problem of illegal Bangladeshi migrants. Thus, Chief
Minister Tarun Gogoi baldly claimed, on July 27, 2012, "There are no
Bangladeshis in the clash but Indian citizens."

Successive
administrations in Assam
have refused to address, and indeed, have sought vigorously to cover up, the
issue of illegal Bangladeshi migration that has destabilized the State and the
wider Northeast for decades now. The general pretext has been that no
authoritative estimate of illegal migrant populations is available, but this
begs the question, since it is the administration that is required to produce
such an estimate, and has defaulted persistently on this duty. Indeed, even the
Supreme Court's goading on this issue has fallen largely on deaf ears, or has
met with fitful efforts at 'compliance', quickly abandoned at the first signs
of predictable resistance.

On July 12,
2005, the Supreme Court of India noted that Assam was facing "external
aggression and internal disturbance" on account of the large-scale illegal
influx of Bangladeshi migrants, and that it was "the duty of the Union of
India to take all measures for protection of the State of Assam from such
external aggression and internal disturbance as enjoined in Article 355 of the
Constitution."

In 2005, the
Centre decided to update the National Register of Citizens (NRC) 'within two
years', on the basis of the 1971 rolls. The exercise failed to take off. On
April 22, 2009, during tripartite discussions between the Central and State
Governments, and the All Assam Students Union (AASU), the Government promised
to initiate NRC updates in two revenue circles, Chaygaon in Kamrup District and
Barpeta revenue circle in Barpeta District. The process commenced on June 7, 2010,
as a pilot project, but almost immediately ran into trouble, with 'law and
order problems' surfacing in Barpeta. On July 21, 2010, protestors under the
banner of the Barpeta District Unit of the All Assam Muslim Students Union (AAMSU),
demonstrated violently outside the Deputy Commissioner's Office, demanding a
halt to the process. Police eventually opened fire, killing four and injuring 50.
While no official suspension was announced, the 'pilot project' stood abandoned
from this point on.

On March 26,
2012, the Government announced the 'decision' to re-launch the Registrar
General of Citizens' Registration pilot project to update the NRC in three phases
from July 1, 2012. AAMSU, with 24 other 'minority organizations' objected to
the decision. The process has not begun till date.

Over the
intervening years, Governments, both at the Centre and in the State have done
much to muddy the waters. The most perverse initiative was the introduction of
the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act of 1983 (IMDT Act), ostensibly
intended to 'facilitate' the quick detection and expulsion of illegal migrants,
but, in fact, designed to disable the far more effective provisions of the
Foreigners Act, 1946, which continue to apply to the rest of the country. With
action initiated only on the basis of a complaint, not suo moto by state
agencies, and the onus of proof shifted from the accused to the complainant, the
IMDT made it nigh impossible to identify and expel any significant number of
illegal migrants. The Supreme Court thus noted, in 2005, that though enquiries
were initiated in 310,759 cases under the IMDT Act, only 10,015 persons were
declared illegal migrants, and even among these, just 1,481 illegal migrants
had been expelled in the duration of the Act, till April 30, 2000. On the
contrary, it was noted, that West Bengal, where the Foreigners Act was
applicable, and which also faced a major problem of illegal migration from Bangladesh, 489,046
persons had been deported between 1983 and November 1998, a significantly
lesser period. The IMDT Act, the Court observed, "is coming to the
advantage of such illegal migrants as any proceeding initiated against them
almost entirely ends in their favour, (and) enables them to have a document
having official sanctity to the effect that they are not illegal migrants."

In
September 2000, the Supreme Court had directed the Union Government to repeal
the IMDT Act by January 2001. The then Bharatiya Janata Party-led National
Democratic Alliance (NDA) Government at the Centre failed to comply, claiming
it did not have the requisite numbers in the Upper House. Unsurprisingly, the
present Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government failed to
initiate any process to implement the Supreme Court's standing orders, till the
Court struck down the IMDT Act in its order of July 12, 2005. Nevertheless, the
Congress continues to contest every move seeking any change to the status quo
that it has engineered on illegal immigrants in Assam, on its own cynical electoral
calculus.

In the
interim, efforts to 'regularize' illegal migrant populations and entrench their
'rights' in what should be protected tribal areas, on the basis of
opportunistic arrangements with militant formations seeking accommodation with
the State, have continued through the disastrous Assam Accord of 1985 and, more
significantly in the present context, the Bodo Accord of 2003. Under the latter
Accord, the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, intended to protect the special
rights of vulnerable Tribal populations, was amended to guarantee the land
rights of 'all communities' living in the BTAD. It is this unprincipled and
opportunistic legislation that is being used by Muslim communalists within and
outside Assam
to claim that all Muslims in the BTAD are Indian citizens with constitutional
protection to the lands they have acquired.

Through all
this, the sheer enormity of the demographic reengineering in the region has
been entirely ignored. Since no Government has committed itself to a detailed
enumeration of citizens or of illegal migrants, there are, of course, no 'official'
estimates of the actual illegal migrant population in Assam. Nevertheless,
authoritative estimates have periodically come into the open source from
official quarters.

In 2005, then
Assam Governor Lt. Gen. Ajai Singh, in a report to the Union Ministry of Home
Affairs (UMHA), leaked to the Press, had claimed that "upto 6,000" Bangladeshis
enter Assam every day. The statement was subsequently modified under pressure
from the Congress to claim that the number applied to Bangladeshis entering India, not Assam alone. A 2001 UMHA estimate
claimed that "150 to 170 lakh (15 to 17 million) Bangladeshi infiltrators
have crossed into India
illegally since 1971." Again, on July 14, 2004, the then Union Minister of
State for Home, Shriprakash Jaiswal, conceded in Parliament that, out of 12,053,950
illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators all over India,
5,000,000 were present in Assam
alone."

Census
figures also provide significant indices for the scale of infiltration. The
Provisional Census 2011 indicated that Assam's population, at 31,169,272, had
registered an increase of 4,513,744 over the preceding decade. Of the State's 27
Districts, Dhubri, bordering Bangladesh,
had recorded the highest growth, at 24.4 percent. The decadal growth rate for Assam, at 16.93
per cent, was lower than the overall national growth, at 17.64 per cent. Details
of trends in various population groupings under the Census 2011 are yet to be
released.

2011 Census
data clearly suggests that the scale of infiltration has declined. Between 1971
and 1991, the Muslim population in Assam grew by 77.42 per cent as
against 41.89 per cent for Hindus. Between 1991 and 2001, again, the
corresponding figures were 29.3 per cent for Muslims and 14.95 per cent for
Hindus. The result was that, currently, of 27 Districts in Assam, at least
six have 60 per cent Muslim population, while another six have over 40 per cent
Muslims. And of the 126 Assembly seats, 54 Members of Legislative Assembly, are
dependent on Muslim 'vote banks'.

There are
numerous troubles between a multiplicity of communities in Assam, and the
Indian leadership and administration has failed to keep pace with contemporary
trends, with the growth of populations, and with the transformation, opportunities
and challenges of new technologies and processes. At base, every administration
has to be anchored in principles of justice, efficiency and honesty. If this is
the case, law and order automatically falls into place. When there is
occasional trouble, people turn to the authorities and not to radical and armed
extremist formations.

Unfortunately,
the integrity of administrations has been comprehensively compromised across India, and more
so in the States of the Northeast. The communalization of politics, a trend
that commenced well before Partition, has progressed through the decades of Independence, even under
and within purportedly 'secular' parties. The external environment has also
been radicalized, with a jihadi ideology now entrenched in Pakistan finding reverberations across the world,
and, at least in some measure, in India as well. It is significant, in
this context, to note that, Lafikul Islam, the 'publicity secretary' of the All
Bodoland Muslim Student's Union (ABMSU), had warned the State Government on
July 7, 2012, that, if the 'culprits' of the violence of July 6, 2012, were not
arrested within 24 hours and the atrocities against the minorities did not end,
ABMSU would declare jihad and take up arms. Within the current international
milieu, such sentiments are sure to find their echoes among the Islamist
lunatic fringe - and its mirrors in other communities - pushing India into a
widening conflagration.

India's
administrators, enforcement and intelligence officials cannot, within the
current global context, continue to remain as ignorant as they evidently are, both
of local trends within their jurisdictions, and of international trends
impinging on perceptions and motivations of local populations. There is
evidence that the current cycle of violence was at least partially linked to
Bodo-Muslim competition to encroach on forest land, in the latter case, for the
construction of an Idgah in the Bedlangmari area in Kokrajhar. However minor
such an incident may appear to be on the surface, no competent administrator or
intelligence operative could possibly ignore its potential for mischief - and
yet, this is precisely what happened. Vast areas of forest and public land in Assam are being
progressively encroached upon, with full connivance of the administration, and
this cannot continue without consequences.

Law and
order in India
can no longer be maintained without understanding the subtle trends in violence
all over the world. Terrorism and insurgency are no doubt significant patterns
that will demand our attention, but there are other patterns of low-grade
violence - such as the rioting in the Bodo areas - which will challenge the
state progressively, especially, where terrorist and insurgent movements begin
to fail. Unless administrators, police leaders and intelligence operatives are
sensitive to past trends, social contexts, and international developments, they
will continue to fail to respond effectively. There is tremendous need, today, to
enlarge the training programmes for the superior services, whose officers are
being found wanting in crises with increasing frequency.

Above all, the
corrupt politics of vote banks and crass electoral calculi, to the manifest
detriment of the national interest, must be defeated. India's
diversity can only be held together by the unity of law and of justice, not by
the unprincipled horse-trading that governs politics today.